


The Valravn

by ravenbringslight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Codependency, Consensual Underage Sex, Corporal Punishment, Creepy, Dubious Morality, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Sibling Incest, Thriller, Unhealthy Relationships, but make it romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:40:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27074374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/pseuds/ravenbringslight
Summary: As the only child of Odin Allfather and his late wife Frigga, Thor is the loneliest boy in all of Asgard. His heart's desire is a brother to share his life with.Funny, then, that a heart is the price he must pay to get one.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 92
Kudos: 318
Collections: Best Thorkis





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I ran across this mythological creature called a [valravn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valravn), which is a magical raven from Danish folklore that eats hearts to become human, and then Rai looked at it and said "kid!thor giving his heart to get a brother" and I went "OH MY GOD" and then I wrote this. Thank you to the gc for listening to me yell WAY TOO MUCH, like, seriously, way too much, and to darklittlestory for beta-ing and pointing out the exact place I needed more words to make the ending perfect.
> 
> "Chose not to use archive warnings" is because there is sexual contact between Thor and Loki when they're about 16. The "corporal punishment" tag is for several instances of Odin disciplining his children with force. Also, I'm playing very fast and loose with valravn mythology, so please do not expect any kind of accuracy there; I simply wanted brothers to kiss.
> 
> This fic is complete and will update once a day until it's done. I hope you enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it isn't clear, Thor is 12-13 ish in this chapter.

The crisp fall air carried the smell of burning leaves and a feeling of change. Thor, full of a restlessness he couldn’t name, talked Heimdall into letting him help man the Bifrost for an hour. It was one of the few flights of fancy the young prince was permitted, or that he permitted himself. Every call to the Bifrost was an opportunity for Thor to imagine a story—why the caller had been away from Asgard, everything they’d seen and done, what they’d brought back. Sometimes he tried to predict the latter. He was hardly ever right.

This morning, Thor opened the Bifrost for a group of young men and women who sailed in on a breath of snow from a universe away. He greeted them, then watched with growing jealousy as they straightened each other’s clothes and hair and traded good natured banter, slinging their arms around each other as they made their way from the dome of the Observatory towards the city, their voices raised in laughter.

“Is there something on your mind, my prince?” Heimdall said once he and Thor were alone again.

Thor cast his gaze out to the stars.

“I was only thinking,” Thor said after a moment, “what it might be like to have a companion.”

It was an old and constant hurt. The Allfather’s only child had no equal and was not allowed friends, even had he the time for them between lessons and duties. Even servants that Thor got overly familiar with were reassigned to discourage inappropriate closeness. Thor could only hope that Odin was not watching him from Hjlidskjalf now as he displayed such insecurity to a man who was technically a servant as well, though Thor would have blushed in shame to have to call Heimdall that. But the restlessness in him today was too much to be borne alone.

Heimdall was quiet. Thor fancied he could feel those golden eyes on the back of his head and fought not to squirm. “There are many who feel the same as you do, my prince,” Heimdall said at last, his tone carefully measured.

“I guess we are all alone together, then. Mayhap there is some comfort in that. Heimdall—” And here Thor stopped, a sudden tightness in his throat. “Do you think, if Mother hadn’t—do you think I might have had a sister? Or a brother?” _An equal. A friend._

“I’ve found it best not to dwell on what may have been,” Heimdall said. “It can only poison what is.”

“You give wise counsel, Watcher.”

Sick with loneliness, Thor finished his watch at the Observatory and returned to the palace. He startled a flock of ravens into flight in the courtyard who scattered like leaves in the wind.

“Sorry!” Thor called out.

Though Thor had never been allowed the company of a peer, no one had ever discouraged him from being kind to the palace ravens. He often brought treats for them, though he had none today. There was one raven in particular who liked to land on his shoulder and run its beak through his hair. He recognized it by the scar on its leg, which it had gotten from one of the palace hounds. Thor had been the one to chase the beast off and wrap the raven’s leg with fabric he cut from his cloak. It had earned him a belting from Odin, but Thor thought it worth the punishment. 

The raven seemed fond of Thor; it offered him shiny bits of junk it picked up in its travels, and let him scritch its feathers, and didn’t mind when he cried. Sometimes Thor thought he should give it a name, but he was scared that his father would know somehow if he did and find some way to chase the creature off.

He looked for his raven now. It was nowhere to be found. Thor realized he hadn’t seen the bird for a week at the very least, and suddenly the emptiness of the courtyard and the wildness of the autumn air seemed almost mocking. He kicked a small rock across the courtyard so hard that his toe throbbed in his boot, souring his mood even further, and he scrubbed at his face.

In a rare display of self-pity, Thor allowed himself to go to the library where, instead of memorizing coats of arms like he was supposed to for his afternoon tutor, he retrieved one of the old picture books that his mother used to read to him when he was small, a compendium of magical creatures. He hid away in a corner alcove and flipped through the elaborately illustrated pages.

 _Pegasus, bilgesnipe, draugr, starshark_. Thor couldn’t remember his mother’s voice reading the words, exactly, but if he closed his eyes he could remember what it felt like to sit in her lap, feeling small and safe with her arms around him, her perfume smelling of sun-ripened berries.

He turned the page. The next illustration showed a raven and a man, and between them an eerie half-bird creature with glaring eyes. He had always felt drawn to this one. The artist had captured a feral blend of mischief and danger that called to something inside of him. It felt like the creature could take flight off the page. _Valravn. Raven of the slain. Valravne are peaceless creatures forever searching for a way to shed their animal countenance and become human. To do so, they must consume the heart of a king slain in battle, or, failing that, the heart’s blood of a child, freely given. They are terrible animals. Though they may come to you with sweet words, they are never to be trusted. They bring only ruin._

Thor ran his fingers over the illustration. He was not yet a king. Was he still a child? His voice had begun to break, though he was yet beardless. He looked out the window, hoping vainly to catch a glimpse of his raven against the overcast sky.

A raven become human. Thor sighed and put his hand on his chest. _It would be worth a heart_ , Thor thought, _to have a brother_.

*

That night, Thor had a dream that was not a dream.

This had happened before. Prophecy was a gift from Frigga’s line, and he had been born with it as much as he’d been born with the storm. It was considered a good gift for a prince to have.

As the dream tried to ensnare him, Thor fought, twisting his blankets around him. The dream was stronger than he was, however, and it pulled him in despite his restless protests. Soon enough his body quieted and his mind floated free.

He walked for a time in darkness. He became aware at some point that he wasn’t walking alone, though he couldn’t see who had joined him. He didn’t feel unsafe.

There was a light touch at his arm, barely more than a shiver of the air. Thor thought his companion was trying to hold his hand. He held his right hand out, palm open, and felt something brush against it. They continued walking.

A voice whispered out of the darkness. “Did you mean it?”

“Did I mean what?”

“What you said.”

“What did I say?”

Suddenly, enormous feathery wings buffeted against him, and Thor threw his arms up with a cry to protect his face. When he opened his eyes, the darkness had lightened just enough for him to make out the dim shape of a barren tree with a vaguely human-shaped figure crouched in its branches.

The same voice floated over to him in a way that felt physical, like if Thor concentrated hard enough he could see the air ruffle with the sound’s passage.

“That you want a brother.”

“Oh.” Thor’s heart beat sharply against his ribs. He hadn’t said that wish aloud, but... “Yes.”

He took a step towards the tree, and the figure in the branches lunged, and once again Thor was buffeted by wings. This time when he opened his eyes it was lighter yet, though still very dim, and the presence was behind him. He could feel something at his throat.

“And the other part?” the voice said. 

Though the voice was directly in his ear, Thor could feel no breath, and he tried not to shudder. “That it would be worth a heart,” Thor said.

“Yesss. Do you have a heart to give?”

Thor swallowed thickly. “Only my own. Will that suffice?”

Whatever was touching his throat dragged down his front. It stopped at his heart, and Thor tried not to look down.

“You have to be sure, little prince,” the voice said, not unkindly. “If you’re not sure, I’ll know, and then you’ll be dead. I’ll gobble you up.”

Four razor-sharp barbs pricked him through his tunic and Thor felt wetness bloom. Talons. He drew in a gasping breath. A heart for a brother. He’d never been more sure of anything in his life.

“Take it,” Thor whispered.

He cried out in agony as the talons pierced him, and he twisted around to see who he’d bargained with, and two brilliant green eyes followed him down into the blackness.

*

Getting dressed the next morning felt like wading through mud, and thinking felt impossible, like the mud had gotten between his ears too. Thor’s heart still beat with disappointing normalcy. Maybe the dream hadn’t been a prophecy dream at all. Maybe Thor had just let his imagination run too wild yesterday.

Sleepy-eyed and sullen-mouthed, Thor dragged himself to breakfast.

Breakfast was ordinarily Thor’s least favorite time of day. He was expected to take it with his father, where he would sit and rearrange the food on his plate while Odin harangued him over everything from his studies to how often he’d been training to the state of his doublet and how much food he was leaving on his plate (as if Thor could have an appetite through such an onslaught). Thor had learned to say, “Yes, father” and shovel in as much tasteless food as he could stand just to get through it with a minimum of fuss.

The guard at the entrance to Odin’s sitting room announced Thor and held the door open for him.

Thor found himself frozen in place in the doorway.

Odin sat at the head of the table just like he always did. But where usually there would be one other place setting there were two, and sitting at the second, illuminated in a shaft of morning light, was a boy.

He was about Thor’s age. He had a pointed face and glossy black hair and sharp eyes, and when he cocked his head at Thor and smiled, Thor _knew_.

“Thor, stop staring and sit down,” Odin said.

“Yes, sir,” Thor said without taking his eyes off the black-haired boy. 

“Come, brother, the eggs are getting cold,” the boy said lightly, still smiling at Thor, and slowly, the expression feeling foreign on his face, Thor smiled back. 

*

Breakfast lasted an eternity. Odin prattled on about lessons and so forth, speaking of his sons’ progress as if Thor’s new brother had always been there and hadn’t just appeared from thin air this morning. Thor struggled not to leap up and take his brother by the hand and drag him around the entire palace showing him everything. He barely took in a word that Odin said.

“What’s your name?” Thor whispered the first moment they had alone. They were walking down the hallway side by side, to a lesson they would take together, and Thor was giddy with it.

“Loki,” the boy said.

“Loki,” Thor repeated. He liked the way it sounded, the “k” sharp in his mouth.

Loki’s eyes danced. They were green, though it was a normal shade and not the green fire that Thor had glimpsed in his dream.

“I’m Thor,” Thor continued.

“I know.”

Loki was wearing a tunic and breeches cut similarly to Thor’s, though everywhere that Thor would have chosen something red, Loki wore green, like his eyes. Thor found himself wanting to touch the curls at the end of Loki’s hair.

“How come Father thinks he knows you?”

Loki smiled, tight-lipped and secretive. “Everyone thinks they know me. No one does, though, except you. You mustn’t tell them.”

“I don’t really know you yet,” Thor objected. Then, almost shyly, “But I’d like to. Brother.”

Voicing the last word sent a thrill down into Thor’s belly, and this time he didn’t stop himself from taking Loki’s hand in his own. Loki’s hand was cool and dry, and he laced his fingers with Thor’s and gave him a squeeze. Thor couldn’t stop smiling.

“We have mathematics next,” Thor said, “but I can show you the stables on the way there. You can meet Sleipnir, he’s my favorite horse, though he’s Father’s and I never get to ride him, oh and we can get some apples from Haldis in the kitchen first, and—”

Thor chattered excitedly all the way down the hallway, and Loki’s hand never left his.


	2. Chapter 2

“Do you want to play a game?”

That had become Loki’s favorite question over the past few months. Thor never knew if it meant that Loki wanted to best him in chess, or torment the palace guards with illusions, or if he was going to ask Thor to do something puzzling like stand on a rock holding a leaf until the sun set.

Thor looked up from the star chart he was annotating to see Loki smiling at him with a mischievous gleam in his eyes, his own star chart lying abandoned.

“If we don’t finish our work, Father will—”

“He’ll what?” Loki still looked amused, not annoyed, although his grin grew sharp. “You give him too much power over you, brother.”

Thor glanced out the window. It was the first nice day of spring, and the blue sky beckoned. The library suddenly felt very dull and dusty.

“What sort of game?” Thor asked.

Loki leaned back in his seat, satisfied. He knew he’d won already. Though Thor sometimes hedged or protested, he never actually said no to Loki. He’d spent too many years alone to test their budding relationship too sorely. And besides…

“A fun one,” Loki said.

Loki had very strange ideas of fun and Thor found himself cautiously thrilled rather than comforted. Although it could be that rock game again, which for all its oddity had been incredibly boring. _”Why a leaf? Why a rock? Why sunset?” Thor asked, already moving to comply, and, “Stop asking so many questions and do it,” Loki said, and, “I’ll know if you drop it,” and, from behind Thor’s back, a rustling like feathers, although when he turned his head it was just Loki._

“Can I finish this first?” Thor said, waving his hand over the last thing he’d inked to dry it.

Loki kicked his chair back and stood, coming over to lean over Thor’s shoulder and look down at his work, his hair brushing against Thor’s cheek and giving him goosebumps.

“It looks finished already to me,” Loki said. Thor looked down and blinked, then frowned. He was sure he hadn’t finished filling in the lower right quadrant, but everything was neatly labeled in his own handwriting, and Loki was already rolling the parchment up and drawing Thor to his feet. “Come on.”

All thoughts of star charts fled as Loki tugged him along out of the palace proper and onto the grounds.

It was a common sight, the fair-haired prince and the dark roaming hand in hand. Their path brought them through the courtyard where the ravens congregated, and Thor held Loki back for a moment.

“What are you doing?” Loki said as Thor stuck his hand into a pouch hanging at his belt.

Thor drew out a handful of grain and knelt, scattering it on the ground. The ravens chucked happily and hopped closer to peck at his offering. A raven twice the size of the others watched him from a balustrade—either Huginn or Muninn, Thor could never tell them apart.

“I haven’t been feeding them as much lately,” Thor said, still crouching. “I used to—” He glanced at his father’s harbinger, suddenly uneasy. A memory tugged at him. “There was...” He trailed off, frowning. He’d lost when he was going to say. “Well, nevermind.”

Gentle fingers scratched at his scalp and Thor closed his eyes. Until Loki had appeared he hadn’t realized that no one else ever touched him. Loki did often and Thor liked it, very much.

Loki hummed contemplatively. Then, “The day is wasting. Come.”

As they left the courtyard, Odin’s raven took off and flapped over their heads, and Loki, laughing, stuck his arm up in the air and let his fingertips brush against it as it passed.

“I can’t believe it likes you,” Thor said. “It’s never liked me. If I tried to do that it would probably bite my finger off.”

Loki only hummed again, and drew Thor onward.

Thor realized that they were approaching the stables.

“What are we doing, brother?” Thor said, uneasy.

“I already told you,” Loki said, mischief dancing in his eyes. “We’re playing a game.”

“We’re not allowed to leave the grounds—”

“We’ll be perfectly safe.”

“But Father—”

“I don’t want to hear his name again today,” Loki snapped, suddenly angry. His face softened at Thor’s stricken look, and he stroked the back of Thor’s hand in repayment for his harsh tone.

“Have I ever gotten us into anything truly dreadful?” Loki continued more gently, entreaty in his voice, and Thor recognized it as the voice that Loki always used on him when he was being mulish. 

It worked as it ever did though, and Thor found himself saying, “No, of course not.”

“Don’t you trust me, brother?”

“I do.”

And Loki smiled at him conspiratorially, the way he smiled at Thor and no one else, and Thor knew that he would do anything that Loki asked as long as they did it together.

*

Thor wrapped his arms tighter around Loki’s waist and fought to keep his balance. Sleipnir’s eight-legged gait was like nothing he’d ever experienced.

Odin was going to whip them both bloody for taking his horse, but right now, with the ground falling away underneath them and the wind in his hair and his brother in his arms, Thor couldn’t say the thought fazed him.

“This is amazing!” Thor shouted. Loki’s laughter floated back to him. The two of them didn’t really fit on the saddle and Thor kept alternating between sliding his bottom forward until he was plastered to Loki in an alarmingly intimate manner, and backward where he threatened to slip off the back entirely.

“Watch this!” Loki called out. They were tearing through the hunting park that surrounded the palace, but they were reaching the edge of it—a low stone wall—beyond which lay a forested glen. They were definitely not allowed to cross it. Loki set Sleipnir straight for the wall and spurred him faster.

They both whooped as Sleipnir cleared it with ease.

Loki slowed them to a walk as they caught their breath. “Let’s go up there,” he said, gesturing to a cliff visible through the trees. They’d be able to look down on the entire palace and grounds and even the Observatory from that high.

“Is there a path?” Thor asked.

“If there’s not, we’ll make one.”

*

Getting up the cliff was no difficulty. It turned out there was a path, and Loki guided Sleipnir with an expert hand like he had done it a dozen times before. At the top, Thor tied Sleipnir to a tree. He and Loki stood as close to the edge of the cliff as they dared. They could see the top of the falls marking the end of Asgard from here, though it was midday and no stars were visible. The palace looked small enough to reach out and pluck like a fruit.

A raven wheeled beneath them. Thor followed it with his eyes, overcome by an incredible longing to be a wild thing as well, free to come and go as he pleased without the looming threat of failure and disappointment that ever weighed him down. He looked over to Loki, who was staring off into the distance looking a bit like a wild thing himself with his windblown hair and the sharp angles of his face.

Thor felt a sudden surge of affection. If Loki hadn’t made him come he’d still be in the library, alone and miserable, and instead he was on a clifftop with his favorite person. He couldn’t help but throw his arm around Loki’s shoulder and give him a squeeze.

“Thank you for making me come,” Thor said.

Loki elbowed Thor in the ribs before settling into his embrace. “I told you it would be fun.” 

“I wish we could stay up here,” Thor said. “Or maybe that we could fly down. It took us over an hour to get this high, but I bet we could fly it in minutes.”

“We could,” Loki said wistfully.

He turned to Thor, suddenly eager.

“Untie Sleipnir.”

“Do we have to go already?” Thor said, dismayed.

“We’re not leaving. Come on.”

Thor got Sleipnir untethered and Loki vaulted up into the saddle effortlessly, then pulled Thor up behind him. Loki leaned into Thor’s chest and angled his head back to speak into his ear. “Hold on tight, and stay in the saddle.”

Loki nudged Sleipnir around in a circle and set them off down a different path than the one they’d taken up. He kept urging Sleipnir faster, until they were careening downhill in a way that put Thor’s heart in his throat.

“Loki!” Thor cried. “He’ll turn an ankle! Slow down!”

Loki ignored him. Rocks broke loose under Sleipnir’s hooves and began tumbling down around them. Thor’s fingers dug into Loki’s sides. The angle of the slope changed, and Sleipnir had to leap over a dip to keep his balance. It felt like they were hurling themselves into thin air. Thor had to swallow a shout.

“Loki!” he pleaded.

A rockfall had caused a gap in the trail ahead of them. They should be turning their horse around and finding a different way to descend, but instead Loki was trying to coax Sleipnir into a full-out downhill gallop. Thor’s stomach dropped to his feet as he realized Loki meant to jump the gap. It was far too wide. They wouldn’t even come close to making it. Loki was going to kill them.

“Are you mad?” Thor screamed.

Loki _laughed_. “Possibly!”

All of Sleipnir’s legs bunched underneath them and then they were soaring through the air for seconds that felt like hours. Loki thrust his arms out to the sides and crowed. Screwing his eyes shut, Thor buried his face in Loki’s shoulder and waited for the inevitable impact, hoping that at least death would be instant and they would not suffer.

There was an impact, but not the one Thor expected. He pried his eyes open to find that Sleipnir had cleared the gap by several body-lengths and was slowing to a stop.

Thor nearly fell off the saddle trying to scramble down. He rounded on Loki, who was sliding down himself.

“That wasn’t funny!” Thor cried.

“You said you wanted to fly!” Loki spread his arms out wide to encompass the sky, his face still lit with excitement. His eyes were intensely green, almost shining like his witchlights, but it must have been a trick of the light, because when he brought his gaze back to Thor his eyes looked as they ever did.

“That wasn’t flying! I don’t know what that was!”

Thor turned to look back at the way they came. The gap looked even wider from below than it had from above. Sleipnir shouldn’t have been able to jump even half that distance. They shouldn’t be alive.

“Brother,” Loki said gently, and tugged Thor around. Thor buried his face in Loki’s neck and fisted his hands in Loki’s tunic to stop their shaking.

“Why do you push me so?” Thor said plaintively.

Loki held him and stroked his hair. “Because no one else will.”

*

Thor took the blame for stealing Sleipnir, and Odin belted him until he couldn’t sit. Then he ordered Thor and Loki both to muck the stables for the next six months.

Sometimes while they worked, Loki would look over at him and spread his arms wide the way he had when they’d flown over the gap, and Thor would remember what it had felt like, and each time the fear was a little less and the thrill was a little more. They’d smile at each other then, a secret shared, and despite the misery Thor would feel like the luckiest person in the world.


	3. Chapter 3

Thor tapped on Loki’s door in the knock pattern that meant he was alone. Loki opened it right away and Thor held up two bottles of spirits.

“Let’s go to the eyrie,” Thor said.

Loki grinned. “How clandestine.”

Thor shrugged nonchalantly, fighting to contain his own grin. He still wasn’t as reckless as Loki, but the three years since his brother had shown up had done much to unwind him. Sometimes he even felt daring, like when he’d stolen these bottles of spirits from Odin’s study earlier during one of the old man’s lectures.

They crept from the palace and across the moonlit gardens. The eyrie was what they called a bit of ruined tower that had gotten struck by lightning and never torn down. It was possible to scale the south side of it, and the top was so overgrown with ivy that once they reached it no one at ground level could see them. Thor tucked one bottle in his belt, and Loki took the other, and they scrambled up like squirrels.

“Let me check on the babies,” Thor said once they were at the top. He nudged some of the ivy aside to reveal a raven’s nest. It was empty. That was good. It meant the babies had finally gotten strong enough to leave.

“You look sad,” Loki said.

Thor pulled a face. “I had bread for them.”

“Ooh, more for me,” Loki said, pawing at Thor’s pockets while Thor fended him off, laughing.

A memory tugged at the corner of Thor’s mind, a sense of deja vu, but when he tried to grasp it it slipped away.

Suddenly Loki cursed and twisted, grabbing at his leg. A blackberry cane was hidden in the ivy and it had snagged him.

“Hold still,” Thor said. Loki lit a small green witchlight at his fingertips for Thor to see by and Thor worked the thorns free one by one. “Let me see if you’re bleeding,” Thor said as he rolled up Loki’s trouser leg.

There were a few shallow scratches, fresh, and one long scar, clearly older, running the length of Loki’s calf. Thor touched it. The deja vu hit him again, harder, and he had to shake his head to clear it.

“Where did you get this?” Thor asked. “I don’t remember you getting injured like this.”

“It was from… before.” Loki rolled his trousers back down and snuffed the light out. They didn’t often talk about the time before Loki came, preferring to preserve the fiction that the rest of the palace believed, that Thor and Loki were twins born on the same day.

“What was it like?”

“Different. I like it better here with you.”

As ever, Thor didn’t push. He drew his bottle from his belt and held it up, and Loki did the same, the tension that had crept into his shoulders melting.

Nestled together shoulder to shoulder, they drank and laughed as loudly as they dared. These were the kinds of evenings Thor liked best, where Loki was close and they were safe, with the knife-edge glint of the Allfather’s looming displeasure to throw everything into relief and make the moments all the sweeter.

Once their drinks had run dry and it was time to go, Loki dragged himself to his feet and stood at the lip of the tower, looking down and swaying. Slowly, he raised his arms to the sides. For one terrifying instant Thor thought he meant to jump. He rushed to Loki’s side and put his arms around him, drawing him backwards, and Loki sagged against his chest, smelling of alcohol.

“What are you doing?” Thor murmured.

Loki tipped his head back and closed one eye so he could focus on Thor.

“Getting caught,” Loki said cheerfully.

The moonlight illuminating Loki’s face turned him into a thing of silver-shadow beauty. He’d been a scrawny child with soft cheeks the morning he’d showed up in Odin’s sitting room, but sometime in the last few years he’d grown into the angles and planes of his face, high cheekbones and a sharp nose as fierce as a raven’s beak. Not for the first time, Thor felt a restless stirring inside him.

Something about the way Loki said _getting caught_ made it sound like it had more than one meaning, but Thor was too distracted by the way Loki was draping himself over his chest to work it out.

“Let’s climb down,” Thor said. “I’ll help you.”

He was bigger than Loki now, by quite a bit, and he held his liquor much better. Together they managed to get Loki down to the ground in one piece, though Loki fell the last three feet, and he laughed when Thor fell on his own backside in his haste to get to him.

As they were stumbling back through the gardens, Thor heard two voices talking, both male.

Loki straightened, suddenly alert, and tugged Thor behind a hedge, casting a spell that Thor recognized as a silencing charm.

As the voices drew closer they resolved into Odin and Heimdall.

“...should be courting,” Odin was saying. “He’s old enough.”

Loki’s back was up against the hedge and he’d pulled Thor flush against him. His breath was warm on Thor’s neck. Thor couldn’t figure out whether to hold himself rigidly away, as he was trying to do, or—

“He’s old for his years,” Heimdall said. “In some ways he was never a child. Perhaps—”

Odin cut him off with a grunt. “All the more reason he should want to court. Perhaps I should arrange something myself. There are several suitable young men and women at the palace right now, I’m sure one of them would catch his eye if given sufficient motivation.”

“I’m not sure that Thor would—”

Their voices faded to indistinct murmuring as they walked away, and Thor held his breath.

 _Me?_ , Thor thought in disbelief.

Loki giggled into his neck.

“ _Sufficient motivation_ ,” Loki singsonged in a pantomime of Odin’s voice.

“Why should I want to court anyone?” Thor said in a hot whisper. “How could I want to when I already have—”

He swallowed his words. _When I already have you,_ his mind supplied. Loki stared up at him in the dark in a way that said _danger_ , and Thor’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Mercifully, Loki didn’t make him finish his sentence.

Thor went, unresisting, when Loki pushed him away and straightened his tunic, and didn’t speak the rest of the way back to the palace.

*

Thor showed up to breakfast with the cobwebs of sleep still clinging to him. Loki was there already, not seated, but standing with his arms behind his back and head down, tense. Odin snapped his fingers and gestured for Thor to stand next to him. Suddenly wide awake, Thor hurried to obey.

“After we’re done here you will both report to the tailor to be fitted for clothing suitable for a ball,” Odin said. “It will be held on the autumn equinox, two months from now. In the next week I expect both of you to learn the name and interests of every person of marriageable age from Asgard or any of our vassal states and submit them to me for review. You will send them invitations yourselves, in your own hand.”

“Father,” Thor said, fighting not to fidget. He kept his eyes on the floor. “Coming out balls are for girls, not men—”

“If my sons elect to act foolishly, then I will treat them like fools,” Odin said coldly.

“But, Father—”

“ _Silence_.”

Thor heard Odin rise from the table and begin pacing.

“Two bottles of Dwarfish firebrandy were missing from my study this morning.” Odin’s voice was almost amiable, and the hair rose on the back of Thor’s neck. “They were a gift, from King Dvalin himself. He will be expecting me to serve them at our next meeting. When I don’t, he will be angry. Do either of you happen to know where these missing bottles might be?”

“No, sir,” Thor and Loki both murmured. The remembered taste of the spirits, sweet and sharp, soured on the back of Thor’s tongue.

Sudden pain whited out his vision. Odin had struck him, an open-handed slap with the hand that bore his signet ring. As Thor regained his senses he saw Loki reeling from a similar blow, the mark from Odin’s ring an angry red welt on his cheekbone.

“You will each write King Dvalin a letter, apologizing for your error in judgment and begging for his forgiveness.”

“Yes, sir,” Thor said. Loki only glared up at Odin from under his lowered brow, but when Odin raised his hand again in warning, Loki muttered, “Yes, sir.”

“Clearly, you both have too much time on your hands,” Odin said. “I have instructed your tutors to double your coursework.” A short pause while both Thor and Loki kept their gazes fixed to the ground. Then, casually, “And after your lessons today you will report to Skurge. You’re too old to put over my knee, so we’ll see how you enjoy the taste of the flog.”

“It was me!” Thor cried, his head snapping up. The idea that Loki would be punished for Thor’s transgression made him sick. “Father, it was me. I stole the firebrandy, you can’t punish Loki, he didn’t have anything to do with it—”

“Finally you see fit to tell the truth,” Odin said. “The flogging is not for stealing King Dvalin’s gift, but for lying to me about it, which both of you did. You will both report to Skurge. Thor, you will receive one more lash than Loki. Dismissed.”

Loki was out the door before Thor could even gather his thoughts, but Thor followed a moment later, rushing down the hallway to catch up with Loki’s long strides.

“I’m sorry,” Thor said miserably. “It was all my fault—”

“I’m not angry at you,” Loki said, his lips thin with rage. His eyes flickered like a stormy sky, lit from within by some restless energy. “I’m angry at _him_. What _right_ does he have—”

“He’s our father,” Thor said. “He has every right.”

Loki snarled. “ _Your_ father, not mine.”

“I’ll take the lashes for you—”

“It’s not _about_ that.”

Loki shoved Thor into an empty room and barred the door. When Loki turned, he’d regained his lost composure, though the effect was marred by the swelling where Odin had struck him. He leaned back against the door and looked at Thor with a worrisome kind of calculation. His fury wasn’t gone, only banked, and his gaze was smoldering.

“Do you want to play a game?” Loki said after a moment.

Thor huffed a disbelieving laugh. “Do I look to be in a gaming mood?”

Loki pushed himself off the door and paced forward. Thor let him move into his space and touch the mark on Thor’s own cheek. He winced at how tender it was already.

“What sort of game?” Thor asked when Loki made no move to do anything else. He was suddenly conscious of exactly how close they were. If he swayed forward an inch they’d be touching all along their fronts. Loki’s eyes searched his. Thor felt like they were peeling him open, exposing every carnal thought he’d ever had about his brother’s body, and he wanted to run, or apologize, or give Loki his belly like a dog. The air between them grew heavy.

Loki’s voice was dark. “This game might ruin us. But if it doesn’t...”

“Brother—” Thor began, but quieted at the press of Loki’s finger against his lips. Loki let his finger drag Thor’s lower lip down, and he ran his other hand up Thor’s chest. Thor shuddered.

“What are you doing?” Thor whispered, his eyes falling shut.

“Something I should have done already.”

And Loki kissed him.

All thought fled at the first touch of Loki’s lips, and for a long blissful moment Thor kissed him back.

Then Loki was backing him up against the wall, fitting their bodies together in a way that made Thor gasp, and he took Loki by the shoulders and pushed him away.

“Wait,” Thor said. He held his brother at arm’s length, trying to force his thoughts into some kind of order before Loki overwhelmed his senses completely. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Loki splayed his hand on Thor’s chest. His eyes flashed unnaturally green for an instant.

“Didn’t you give your heart to me?”

Thor let his head knock back against the wall. They’d never spoken of this, and he was suddenly dizzy. What exactly had happened all those years ago when he’d made his child’s bargain? What was beating in his chest now? He swallowed. No matter how literal, the answer to Loki’s question was the same.

“Yes,” Thor said. “But we’re brothers.”

“We are. But we’re more than that, are we not?”

Thor could only groan as Loki crowded in and kissed him again. They’d done many things in their time together that skirted the edges of honor and morality, but Loki had just pushed them off the cliff. It was like being on Sleipnir again, and Thor didn’t know yet whether they were falling or flying.

Loki pressed his hips against Thor’s. “Your manhood doesn’t seem to mind what words we call each other. I think it even excites you… _Brother_.” 

“Gods,” Thor whimpered, and finally gave in to the urge to wrap his arms around Loki. Loki was right. He was Thor’s brother, and Thor wanted him, possibly because of it. Worst of all, knowing now that Loki wanted him the same way, Thor could not even feel sorry for it. Odin was going to kill them both.

Loki took Thor’s earlobe in his teeth and whispered hotly, “I want you to spill on me.”

Thor, ever slave to his brother’s desires, obeyed.


	4. Chapter 4

Thor shook his hand out and tapped sand onto the ink to dry it. He’d been writing invitations to the ball for so long that it felt like his fingers would stay permanently crabbed even after he was done. It seemed such a waste. He knew that none of the people he was writing to would ever be able to hold a candle to Loki. Trying to court anyone would only waste their time and his.

The urge to put his head down on the desk and sleep was strong, but he resisted. He hadn’t been sleeping much for the last week. The doubled coursework had been keeping him up late into the night, but he was determined to finish all of it, and well. Too many years of perfectionism had left him unwilling to attach his name to shoddy work.

Loki sat across the room, tapping his foot incessantly against the ground and staring out the window. His own invitations were a careless scrawl. At least he had done them, Thor thought. Odin’s punishment had had the opposite effect on Loki, and he seemed determined to finish no coursework at all. Thor had to ignore his own urge to finish Loki’s work for him. It would do neither of them any good if he did.

Thor took out a fresh piece of parchment. Loki’s chair scraped behind him, and then Loki was at Thor’s back, long-fingered hands on his shoulders, squeezing and kneading.

“Stop,” Thor murmured. They were in the Allfather’s small private library, but they were hardly alone. Their tutor had only stepped out briefly and would be back any moment. Instead of stopping, Loki leaned down to suck at Thor’s ear.

“ _Stop_ ,” Thor said again, but he let his head fall to the side, and Loki licked and kissed down his neck until desire bloomed hot in Thor’s belly and roused him halfway to hardness. His eyes closed and his breathing shallowed, and he somehow had the feeling that Loki was mantling over him like a raptor over its prey. He remembered the talons at his chest from so long ago.

The door to the library creaked open and Loki was back at his desk instantly, leaving Thor flushed and wanting and trying to pretend he was neither. Mercifully, Loki distracted the tutor with questions that Thor knew he already knew the answer to while Thor collected himself.

Thor had the mad urge to throw the man out himself, sweep the invitations to the floor, and pull Loki on top of him right here on the desk.

He managed to contain himself until they were excused. They had a little more than a quarter of an hour before they had to be at the training grounds. It was time enough for Thor to pull Loki into an empty dining room, hands already searching for bare skin before the door was even barred.

Loki hissed when Thor’s calloused hands found his back under his tunic.

“Sorry,” Thor murmured. He gently lifted Loki’s tunic and saw that his delicate skin was still bruised from the flog. It made Thor wince. Thor was a warrior, used to taking injuries; Loki wasn’t, and his body was slower to heal, making the punishment doubly unfair. It felt unjust.

That sense of unjustness had been niggling at him all week. At first Thor had taken all the guilt and blame upon himself, but…

Loki’s words from that morning had stuck in his mind. _”What right does he have?”_

It was not Thor who had sent down this punishment. It was Odin. For the first time in his life, Thor was questioning his father’s judgment and feeling ill-used.

Thor kissed Loki’s cheek where the mark from Odin’s ring was still barely visible, trying to say sorry with his body as well, trying to chase the uneasiness from his mind.

“Kiss me here,” Loki said, touching his own lips. Thor did.

They were two minutes late to their training session, out of breath and disheveled, and given twice as much work because of it, and Thor didn’t regret it for an instant.

*

A month later, they were in the Observatory. Thor gave Heimdall a two-fingered salute, which the Watcher returned with a small bow, his hand over his heart, and then he was striding down the Bifrost, and Thor and Loki were alone with the cosmos open before them.

It had been awhile since Thor had gotten to man the Bifrost. He had suggested it to Loki this morning, arguing that a successful display of responsibility might lighten some of their load. Loki seemed unmoved by that line of reasoning, although he relented quickly enough when Thor persisted.

As soon as Heimdall had disappeared from sight, Loki dragged Thor into a needy open-mouthed kiss.

“Is this the only reason you said yes?” Thor said, slipping his hands down to palm at Loki’s backside.

“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” Loki said. He nipped at Thor’s jaw. “All these people coming and going—we’ll have to be terribly careful—”

Thor knew he should object, but instead he let Loki ruck his tunic up and tug at the laces of his breeches. His brother’s kisses were sweeter than any mead, and the last month had passed in a love-drunk haze that still clouded Thor’s reason. They’d had each other anywhere they could get away with, and a few places they probably shouldn’t have been able to, but somehow, miraculously, they hadn’t been caught yet. Every successful encounter made them a little more daring and yet also increased Thor’s anxiety twofold, and every day he felt liable to fizzle right out of his skin. The weather around the palace had become erratic to match his temper.

Loki dropped to his knees to tug Thor free of his laces, and fear and arousal spiked through him. His eyes fell shut at the first touch of Loki’s mouth on his flesh.

He was soon too lost in pleasure to hear the call for the Bifrost coming from the sword on the dais.

When the tinny voice finally registered, Thor cursed and stumbled away from Loki, holding his breeches up with one hand. The panic in the caller’s voice was clear. Thor twisted the sword in its setting, and tied his breeches shut with shaking hands as quickly as he could while Loki slowly got to his feet behind him.

Two figures appeared in the rainbow maelstrom, and resolved into a woman with a sword barely keeping an injured man upright. He appeared semi-conscious, and his head lolled as blood dripped to the floor from his ruined arm.

“Why did you not open the Bifrost when we called!” the woman demanded furiously. “Get the healer! Now! We may not have enough time!”

Loki was the faster runner. Thor turned to him with pleading eyes, and Loki nodded before taking off down the bridge at a dead sprint. Dread and shame knotted Thor’s stomach and tied his tongue.

“I’m sorry,” he managed.

“Sorry won’t mend my friend,” the woman snarled.

All Thor could do was start tearing his tunic into strips to staunch the man’s wound, and try to keep the sky from opening up above them.

*

“I did not think it was possible for my sons to disappoint me even further, and yet here we are.”

Thor and Loki stood side by side in Odin’s study, hands clasped behind their backs, gazes pointed at the floor. The old man paced back and forth before them. 

“The man whose Bifrost call you failed to answer will live, and you may thank the Norns for that, for that is the only reason your punishment is not more severe,” Odin continued. “Responsibility is the chief virtue of a ruler, and yet it seems that despite my repeated attempts to instill it in both of you, it refuses to take. I treat you like men and you act like children, spoiled and selfish. You avoid lessons. You take things that are not yours. You lie. You allow harm to come to the people who rely on you for their safety. I have been too soft on you. Nothing else I have done has seemed to get through to you, but perhaps this will. From this moment on you will be separated—”

“No,” Thor said before he could stop himself, raising his head to look at Odin in horror.

“Wait—” Loki said, taking a step forward.

Odin cut off Loki’s forward movement with a gesture and a snarl, and Loki fell back.

“You will be separated!” Odin continued, emphasizing each word separately. “Until such time as you can demonstrate you have become worthy of my favor again. If that day never comes, so be it. You are dismissed.”

Thor felt divorced from his own body as Odin summoned a pair of guards to lead each of his sons away to their separate quarters. He cast one desperate look back at Loki, whose face was a mask of cold rage.

 _But he has my heart,_ Thor thought. _If you take him away from me, I’ll die._

“Brother,” was what Thor said instead, and then he was being pushed out of the door, alone.

*

As Thor went about the drudgery of his new days, he thought it would have been kinder for Odin to lock him in the dungeons. When he wasn’t attending one of his tightly scheduled lessons or training sessions, he was escorted to his rooms by guards. Two of them were posted at his door at all hours with strict orders to keep him inside. Food was delivered to him, except for when Odin summoned him for a one-on-one meal where he was forced to endure one of the old man’s lectures in silence. Thor inevitably ended up not eating at all, but as long as he made the appropriate noises and tried to look contrite he usually escaped relatively unscathed, though more than once he was startled out of an introspective funk by Odin cuffing him round the ears and barking at him to pay attention.

For perhaps the first time, when Thor looked at Odin he didn’t see the Allfather. Instead, he saw a lonely, petty old man trying vainly to secure his legacy the only way he knew how. It was like a veil had fallen from Thor’s eyes.

 _But the harder you grasp at us, the more easily we slip away_ , Thor thought. _Like grains of sand._

It made him miss his mother.

Thor never caught even a glimpse of Loki. Each day that passed without seeing his brother weighed heavier than the last.

One night, two weeks into what he had taken to thinking of as his imprisonment, Thor propped himself up on the windowsill and stared at the sky. He tried to see past the stars to the shape of Yggdrasil itself holding the universe up, shadowy and vast. Were the Norns even now weaving his fate amongst its roots? Was his thread already set?

Thor blinked tears away and scrubbed at his face. Did Loki miss him as much as he missed Loki?

Something struck the window and Thor jumped back. It happened again, and Thor flung the window open, and a coiled up hank of rope hit him in the chest.

Loki’s moon-washed face was shining up at him from three stories down.

“Come on,” Loki mouthed exaggeratedly, beckoning Thor with both arms.

Quickly, heart hammering, Thor tied one end of the rope to the bed. He tossed the rest of it out the window and shimmied down.

They were in each other’s arms before Thor was even properly on the ground, a desperate grappling embrace that knocked them both into the grass where they rolled around kissing messily.

“I missed you so much,” Thor mumbled into Loki’s neck.

“Oh, _Thor_ ,” Loki sighed, and held him close.

It suddenly struck Thor how exposed they were, and he scrambled to get up, tugging his clothes into place, and drew Loki into the shadows of the hedges.

“Have you been well?” Thor said, raking his eyes over Loki, drinking in the sight of him.

“I’m as well as I can be,” Loki said. He ran his hands up Thor’s arms. “And you?”

“Every day is misery without you.”

Loki’s lips thinned in a sad not-smile. Thor noticed for the first time how gaunt he looked, and he thumbed at Loki’s cheekbones as though he could will flesh onto them.

“The ball is in a fortnight,” Loki said. “I would be gone before then.”

Thor’s stomach dropped. He must have misheard.

“Gone?”

“This place is oppressive,” Loki said. “If we stay here we’ll be crushed.”

“But—” Thor’s mind reeled as he tried to make sense of Loki’s words, but one thing stood out. He’d said _we_. “Do you mean for me to come with you?”

“Of course.”

“I—we—” Thor stammered.

“Take a moment,” Loki said, stroking Thor’s hair soothingly. “I know it’s a lot.”

A thousand possibilities raced through Thor’s mind, a thousand different lives they could lead—just the two of them, out from under Odin’s thumb, free to do as they pleased—he wanted it so desperately he could taste it—but it was too much—

“If we can just keep our heads down, surely this must blow over,” Thor said desperately. “We deserved some kind of punishment, a man lost his arm because of us—”

“I’ve been spying on Odin,” Loki said. “He means to send me away after the ball, to a remote military outpost. There are no plans for my return.”

“No,” Thor said, aghast. It was too horrible to be contemplated, and so Thor didn’t try. “We can convince him to let you stay. We must. Maybe we can...we can stop _this_ —” Thor felt sick to even say it. “Everything was fine before this. We can go back to how it was before. If I have to...to give you up as my lover, it would be worth it to still have you by my side as my brother…”

Loki’s brow had drawn up in wonder while Thor was talking. “You’ve never changed in all these years. Still willing to trade your heart for a brother.”

“I love you,” Thor said miserably.

Loki spoke, voice full of gentle entreaty. “Do you really want to give this up, Thor? Your whole life he’s denied you happiness, but you, my darling—you’ve managed to find some for yourself. To _make_ some. He’s asked so much of you, but this is the only thing you’ve ever asked for in return. I know. I was with you even before I was your brother. I’ve always been with you.”

Thor shook his head, closing his eyes against the tears that threatened to fall.

“Don’t you remember?” Loki continued. “I remember a scared little boy who’d just lost his mother, shouted into silence by a father too blind to see that grief is not weakness. A little boy who came to the palace courtyard with a handful of grain, so desperate for company that he cried all his secrets to the birds he found there. Don’t you remember?”

Loki was stroking Thor’s hair again. His words lit a spark of memory that flared to life all at once. Thor’s raven friend. The one he had been too scared to even name, lest Odin take even that small bit of comfort away too. He hadn’t thought of that raven since… It remained stubbornly cloudy in his mind. The last time he’d tried to grasp this thought had been...it had been in the eyrie, when he had seen the scar on Loki’s leg…

“Oh,” Thor breathed with an odd kind of relief as it all became clear.

“Yes,” Loki said. “I’m sorry I made you forget.”

Thor’s raven friend, who had had a scar on its leg just like Loki’s, and who Thor had been thinking of the day he’d traded his heart away, and who was now standing before him in his brother’s skin.

“I plucked my name from your dreaming mind,” Loki said. “I think it suits me, don’t you?”

Thor crushed Loki to him, unable to do anything other than hold him close—his brother, his lover, his oldest friend.

Loki embraced him back. “From the first, I’ve been trying to help you break free of him. Don’t let him win. Even if you convince him to let me stay, he’ll never accept us. We must leave. To stay is death.”

“If we leave…” Thor said. “He’ll never let us go. He’ll find us and kill us for true. It’s death either way.”

Loki pushed Thor away and looked him in the eye. It was a piercing look, and Thor knew that Loki was looking _at_ him, not over or through him as the people in the palace did, or the way that Odin looked at him where Thor was positive Odin was seeing someone else. Loki saw _him_ , and always had.

“Then we have to kill him.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got too excited and couldn't wait, here's the end.

Before Thor climbed the rope back up to his room, Loki pressed a folded piece of parchment to his hand.

“I've spelled it,” Loki said. “I have its twin and whatever you write on yours will show up on mine.”

The first time Thor tried, he watched in wonder as the paper drank his ink and it disappeared without a trace. The lifeline to his brother initially did much to buoy his spirits, though as the days passed the things they wrote about twisted his stomach into knots. Loki was set on his plan and Thor could not dissuade him.

Every time Thor was summoned to Odin’s presence in the following fortnight, he watched the old man’s face with a sick fascination. He could hardly believe the things he’d written about him with his own hands.

Three days before the ball, Thor was brought to a final fitting for his outfit. Loki was there too; it was the first time they’d officially seen each other in a month. Loki was dressed all in black and he’d become even more drawn looking in the last two weeks since their midnight meeting. His cheeks and eyes were both hollow and sunken, though his irises glittered brightly, and he moved with quick jerky motions.

 _Like a raven,_ Thor thought. Then, _No, a valravn._

For that, after all, was what he was.

Thor had checked the bestiary in the library again just days ago. _Valravne are terrible animals. Though they may come to you with sweet words, they are never to be trusted. They bring only ruin._

Thor let the tailors poke and tug at him, and watched his brother in the mirror.

“Tonight,” Loki mouthed at him.

Thor met his hollow gaze, and nodded.

*

They met in the moonlight, by a fountain that had once been Frigga’s and still bore the traces of her touch in the autumn clematis that wound around it. Loki had never looked more inhuman than he did now. He was slender as a knife, the hollowed shadows of his face making him look half a corpse and lending him a raptor’s fierceness. The hands that rose to smooth Thor’s hair behind his ears looked more like talons than anything else, his fingers knobbed and overlong.

“What has happened to you?” Thor breathed, taking Loki’s hands and kissing them.

“Being apart from you does me ill,” Loki whispered. Even his voice was changed. It was rough and uneven, nothing like the velvet softness that Thor was used to hearing.

“It does me ill as well.”

“Are you ready?”

Thor turned away, his breath already quickening. Sweat sprang up on his palms. He wiped them on his trousers and realized they were shaking.

“No,” Thor said truthfully.

Loki’s hands were cool and dry on his face and Thor turned into the touch gratefully. “You saved my life once. Let me help save yours. It will be over soon.”

“Are you sure this is the only way?”

Loki’s eyes glowed like lamps.

“Yess,” Loki hissed. 

Thor’s hand stole to the hilt of the dagger he’d tucked into his belt, as long as his forearm and sharp enough to part a single strand of hair. The plan was simple enough. Odin visited this fountain every year on this day, his dead wife’s nameday. Thor had accompanied him, once, the first year after Frigga had died, but Odin had never invited him again. Tonight Odin would come here alone, all unawares in his grief, and Loki would quiet his mind with magic and Thor would draw his dagger and do the rest.

The fountain was ringed by hedges twice a man’s height, with two archways cut into the foliage. They hid themselves in the shadows just past the archway opposite the one Odin would enter. Thor’s thoughts chased themselves round in circles, his stomach tying itself into knots, and he thought if he had to speak he would simply break down crying. Loki took his hand and held it. It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless, and Thor held onto him tightly.

When Odin’s footsteps became audible, Thor gasped. The world seemed to twist, and he realized he’d fallen to his hands and knees in the gravel. Cold sweat slicked his brow, and he ran hot, and his hands spasmed. Above him, Loki whispered something guttural.

Thor dragged his head up. Odin was slumped on the bench by the fountain in his dressing robe and slippers, his neck at a strange angle, unconscious from Loki’s spell. Distantly, Thor noticed that Odin’s bare bony ankle was sticking out, mottled and purple, and _someone should cover him up_ , Thor thought.

“You must strike quickly. Can you do that for me, brother? Then we’ll be free.”

Thor looked at Loki, who had moved towards the fountain and now stood between Thor and Odin. He was beautiful and terrible, limned in silver moonlight. The way his cloak fell as he pointed towards Odin made him look like some winged thing. 

Thor fumbled the dagger from his belt and rose to his feet, unsteady.

“I don’t want to,” Thor said, his voice breaking. Every scrap of determination he’d gathered over the last fortnight fled. He blinked, and two tears fell down his face. “I don’t want to.” His hand gripped the dagger’s hilt so tightly he couldn’t feel his fingers.

Loki seemed to grow taller, bristling outward, his face becoming more pointed. When he spoke it was the voice from Thor’s vision.

“I could make you.”

Loki’s eyes burned, two green flames in the black pits under his brow. He clenched his talons into a fist and Thor felt his heart wrench in his chest. Thor was crying so hard he was hiccuping. If he didn’t kill Odin, he would lose Loki. How could he do it? How could Loki ask this of him? Loki had been pushing him so long. Thor didn't know how to push back.

“Please.” Thor could barely speak. “Please, Loki. Don’t make me.”

“Would you still love me if I made you kill your own father?”

Thor sobbed. “ _Yes._ Yes, gods help me. But I’d hate myself.”

The pressure around his heart grew tighter, and Thor stumbled, fighting to breathe.

“Brother,” Thor managed to choke out. “Don’t you love me?”

Abruptly, the pressure disappeared and Thor drew in a long shuddering breath. The dagger was taken from his hand and dropped to the ground. Cool hands stroked his face, smoothed his brow, took his shaking hands and held them tight.

“I do love you,” Loki whispered brokenly. He looked like himself again, drawn but human, with ordinary human hands and eyes. “More than anything. My darling. I’ve gone too far. I think… I think you should have something back. I think that… that you would take care of it better than I have…”

“No.” Thor clutched at Loki’s hands, cold panic flooding his veins as Loki's words sank in. “Brother, no.”

“I’m so sorry.” Loki’s face twisted in a devastated smile. “Everything I did, I did out of love. I hope you can forgive me. I only wanted…”

“No,” Thor said again, but Loki was already drawing in a long breath, and his eyes flared, and then he was stepping back with his hands twisting in some complicated gesture. 

Before Thor could do anything more than reach for him, the world exploded into a rush of heat and light. Something flowed into Thor, like water pouring into a vessel. He thought he might choke, or fly to pieces, or come apart like a fraying tapestry. His pulse rushed in his own ears and he staggered, nearly falling.

When Thor finally came back to himself he felt frantically over his whole body and was relieved to find that he still had one. His heart thundered steadily in his chest, strong and true, and he felt _whole_ in a curious way, like some misaligned piece had snapped into place. The world seemed brighter, more hopeful; his problems less overwhelming, like he could accomplish anything he set his mind to. Even the problem of Odin, which had been so monolithic only moments ago, felt like it had shrunk to something surmountable.

“Loki!” Thor cried, spinning around in a circle to find his brother.

There, crouched in the shadows in front of the fountain, was a creature.

It was a twisted, hunched thing, and looked like it was covered in a cloak. Thor took a step forward and it moved. Not a cloak—feathers. It stirred again. Its arms were too long for its body and ended in talons that opened and closed weakly.

“Loki?” Thor said hesitantly.

The creature made a wet rumbling sound deep in its chest and tried to shift away from him. Thor could not see its face, hunched over as it was. He came closer, and closer still, and reached out a hand to touch it.

At the first brush of his fingers, the creature’s breathing sped up. Panting like a wounded animal, Thor thought. When he found its face by touch, he tipped it upwards into the moonlight.

Thor’s heart broke. “Loki.”

It was Loki’s face and it wasn’t. There was skin, but also scales and feathers, with inhuman eyes and a great hooked beak. _Just like the illustration from the book_. The one Thor had always felt drawn to, had always loved, on some level.

“Go,” the Loki-creature wheezed. “I don’t want you... to see me... like this.”

“I won’t leave you. Are you hurt? Brother, what’s happened?”

A horrible sound emanated from the creature, and Thor realized after a moment that it was laughing.

“You still call me… brother.”

“You’re injured,” Thor said, more firmly. “We’ll take you to the healers—”

“It’s too late.” Another hacking laugh wracked the creature and it quickly turned into a cough. Thor dropped to his knees and cradled Loki’s face in his hands.

“It’s not too late,” Thor said. “Come, I’ll help you up.”

“Sweet… Thor… you don’t have to love me any longer… I gave it back… your heart… I gave it back…”

“Is that why you’re hurt? I give it back to you. Take it. You need it more than I do.”

“I can’t. Never… should have… given it to me…”

“Stop,” Thor said. It was intolerable, this ache. Now that he had his heart back, it was easy to see exactly how Loki had cemented his hold over him all these years, but Loki was a fool if he thought it only went one way. And they had been more to each other than that. They had been _more_. Thor could no more stop loving Loki than he could rip his own beating heart from his chest with his bare hands. Even if he could, he didn’t want to. He was Loki’s, and Loki was his.

“Give your heart to me,” Thor said, desperate. The creature tried to push him away, but Thor held fast, wrapping his arms around its neck and burying his face in its oily feathers. “You held my heart. Now let me hold yours. Give it to me. That will fix you, won’t it?”

“It’s never… been done…”

“Then we’ll be the first. Loki. _Please_.”

One taloned hand came up to stroke Thor’s hair, the way that Loki always did, the way he’d done even as an ordinary raven.

“Please,” Thor whispered. “I don’t want to live without you.”

When Thor opened his eyes, the fountain and the hedges and Odin had fallen away. It was only him and Loki in the dimness of that otherworldly plane that Thor recognized from his vision—the place he had first struck his bargain. Back then Loki had remained out of sight. Thor saw him now.

Slowly, Loki rose to his full height. He was half again as tall as Thor, all crooked joints and too-thin skin, with great winged arms that he spread wide. Slaver dripped from his wickedly pointed beak to sizzle on the ground. Every inch of him was laid bare, and he was hideous and terrible to behold, and Thor loved him.

Thor wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, and gave Loki a tearful, trembling smile.

“You have to be sure,” Thor said. “If you’re not, I’ll know, and then I’ll gobble you up.”

Loki kept his arms spread wide, and Thor stepped into them.

He plunged his hand into Loki’s scaly chest. A ragged cry tore from Loki’s beak, and then his wings were wrapping around Thor, enfolding him, and Thor closed his eyes as the world dissolved into green fire and he fell into nothing.

*

King Regent Thor showed up to his own coming out ball with a beautiful dark-haired young man on his arm. The entire court was abuzz with gossip about the new arrival. No one knew who he was or where he’d come from, or how the young Regent, who by all accounts was a sheltered, shy thing, seemed so very familiar with him. Thor wore cloth-of-silver, his mother’s crystal diadem on his brow, and his paramour wore a striking coat of iridescent feathers. They danced every dance together, leaving dozens of would-be suitors fuming into their goblets, many of whom had been preparing their whole lives for a chance at trying for the hand of Asgard’s heir.

People who had come to the ball to meet the Allfather also had their hopes rudely dashed. Odin had fallen into one of his sleeps just days before, quite suddenly by all accounts, leaving his only son to ascend his throne until he woke.

The King Regent graciously introduced his guest to anyone who asked.

“This is Loki,” Thor said, while the young man in question smiled politely and tucked his arm more firmly into Thor’s. There was no family name or title as far as anyone could divine. Thor seemed unbothered by it, just as he seemed unbothered by any courtly notions of decency, choosing instead to embrace Loki for all eyes to see, kissing his cheek and even his lips.

Heimdall caught up with them by the punch. It was particularly discomfiting to him that he did not know who was gracing the King Regent’s arm. His reputation didn’t allow such blind spots.

“This is Loki,” Thor said to him, as he’d said dozens of times already that night. His lips quirked into a smile. “Loki, Heimdall.”

“A pleasure,” Heimdall said. He held his hand out in greeting. Loki first looked to Thor with his brow arched in amusement, but he took Heimdall’s hand with a firm shake. “Loki,” Heimdall said, considering. “Thor, didn’t you once have a brother named Loki?”

Thor shrugged and took Loki’s hand back in his own. “A lifetime ago. I’m surprised you remember.”

A memory surfaced, dim with age. Thor’s brother had died in a fall. Heimdall could not summon his face to mind. The alcohol must be stronger than usual tonight; he resolved to quit the punch.

“Thor has mentioned it,” Loki said. “An amusing coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Very. Thor, I’m sorry to hear about your father. I wanted to let you know that my counsel is yours any time you should need it, as it was your father’s.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

Outwardly Heimdall remained impassive, but he was startled by Thor’s familiarity. _My friend._ He looked at Thor with new eyes and saw not a child, but a man who would be King, and, _Yes_ , Heimdall thought, _I would be your friend, if you would let me._

“I wish the two of you happiness together,” Heimdall said.

Thor turned his gaze to Loki and they smiled at each other, flush with young love. 

“Oh, yes,” Thor said. “We’re very happy.”

**Author's Note:**

> [www.twitter.com/thunderingraven](http://www.twitter.com/thunderingraven)


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